1. Technical Field
The invention is related to the control of shared displays, and more particularly to a system and process for controlling a shared display based on inputs from multiple users using multiple input modalities.
2. Background Art
There are a variety of scenarios in which a number of individuals share a common information display that is often referred to as a shared display. Examples of shared displays include movie theater screens, meeting room projection screens, flight-information kiosks at airports, and large outdoor displays as can be found in Times Square or Piccadilly Circus. Further, conferences, conventions, talks and demonstrations are almost always accompanied by a large shared display for the audience; certain retail segments, such as coffee shops and bars cater to audiences using shared displays; and advertisers have been putting up shared displays in large public spaces as a way to host ads with richer media content. In all of these scenarios, the possibility of audience interaction with the shared display would add additional functionality and excitement. Unfortunately, today, the majority of these displays are not interactive; that is, the viewers have no influence on what is displayed.
Some exceptions to this rule are emerging however, where shared displays are interactive. For example, electronic notice boards are starting to appear in communal areas of organizations and public places in lieu of the traditional bulletin boards where people would post paper copies of information they wanted to share with others. Essentially, an electronic notice board is a large display screen that is available for a user to electronically display notices and the like. The information is either posted to the board remotely from a user's desktop PC via a network having the notice board as one of its endpoints, or via directly-connected input devices located in the vicinity of the board.
Another example of an interactive shared display environment involves the use of single display groupware. Such systems employ a large communal display device and allow multiple users to concurrently interact with a shared application that outputs to the display. Typically, each user inputs to the shared application via a wired or wireless input device such as a computer mouse.
Examples of shared display environments that allow user interaction via their cell phones include a large LCD screen currently located in the Lisbon office of Vodafone. The LCD screen includes news headlines and short animations, and invites visitors to play interactive games. More particularly, a user is prompted to dial a number on their cell phone and then interact via Short Message Service (SMS) text messaging to play solo or against another person in the vicinity. Another example is the BBCi Studio street-level window displays in London which allow passersby to see and hear interviews in progress and submit their own questions by using their cell phone and SMS text messaging. The questions appear on a large display screen on the back wall of the studio.
However, even these interactive shared displays are quite limited in the ways a user can interface with the application associated with the display. For instance, only a single mode of input is typically supported. This is unfortunate as allowing multiple modes of input into the shared display would result in a greater percentage of the audience being able to participate. In addition, the existing interactive shared display environments are typically implemented as custom solutions, which cannot be adapted to other shared display applications.